Howard Florey - The Story of Penicillin: In the Adelaide City region of South Australia
Another bust on North Terrace. This one the eminent Howard Florey. The 60th anniversary of the Nobel Prize for him and his team is coming up and with it, the publication of a new American book giving him credit as one of the medical scientists of the 20th century. After all 50 million lives saved through the first great antibiotic, penicillin, isn't bad! The case is good for our local boy being one of the great Australians.
A century back, young Howard (the son of a successful shoe manufacturer) was growing up in a grand family home above Mitcham Village. Young Howard loved the bush of the foothills and milking the cows in the paddock but if he had jagged himself on a rose, or a fence and the wound turned septic then he may well have died.
If he had landed in the Royal Adelaide Hospital (where he was to eventually to do his post-graduate medical practical work) Doctors could do little to save him from blood poisoning or a host of other diseases.
A 1990's locally developed CD Rom on Florey traces his brilliant student days at St. Peter's College and University. The Barr Smith Library has many of his career research papers and a precious relic.
It's one of his slides of the magic green mould - penicillin. But it was a long way to the stage where it was a drug that was easy to administer and, very importantly in wartime, mass produce.
Florey's brilliance was in getting it all to happen. From the 1940 experiments on 87 mice that changed the world, showing deadly bacteria could be attacked successfully, to the first human patient (a policeman) and then on to producing enough for wider trials.
Included in the CD Rom celebrating his role are images from a BBC program, "The mould, the myth and the miracle".
It wanted to expose the myth that the antibiotic break through belonged solely to Dr. Alexander Fleming who shared the Nobel Prize for simply identifying the bacteria killing mould. It's all about giving our Howard Florey a go in history.
The new American book is about fixing the same myth in the United States and it notes too the role of the forgotten Ethel Florey, the talented Adelaide University trained medical scientist, who married Howard and helped make the breakthrough happen.
Florey and his team, starved of research money in wartime Britain, gained vital mass production assistance from the United States.
And his own home movies show the first army field hospital trials in North Africa. The pioneering antibiotic was quickly saving soldiers from their worst enemy - infected wounds.
The Normandy invasion of 60 years ago began the last chapter of WW2 and the first chapter of the antibiotic medical era. 98 of every 100 penicillin treated casualties survived!
Now, when you pass him on North Terrace, you might agree it's a modest statue for such a giant of medical science. At least Lord Florey of Adelaide and Marston is being recognized anew in the United States and beyond.
A rough colonial genius, that's what the Americans called him, according to this new book out of New York, full of good yarns including the one behind the title, 'The Mold in Doctor Florey's Coat". That's because during the dark days of WW2, when they seriously thought they would be invaded by Hitler, each of the scientists rubbed some of the magic green mould into their jacket even if only one of them escaped, the penicillin would go with them.
The book's a dream read, available at Dymock's in the Rundle Mall and by order from any good bookshop. You can order the CD Rom from the Science Teachers Association for just $5 postage and handling but it only plays on Windows 95 or Apple Macs.
The Mold in Doctor Florey's Coat.
The Story of the Penicillin Miracle.
Eric Lax
published by Henry Holt and Co, New York, 2000
RRP $52.95Florey and The Miracle Mould
CD Rom
published by the Florey Medical Chapter,
Alumnae of University of Adelaide and
The History trust of S.A, 1994.
available from
The S.A Science Teachers Association
211 Flinders St, Adelaide, S.A, 5000
$5 for postage and handling.
If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
